Three More Great History Podcasts That Aren’t Hardcore Story
When these business school bullies bullied you for your worthless doctorate in medieval literature, they didn’t see the history podcasts appear. Now it’s pretty damn cool to sit in a closet and read a doctoral dissertation. Because it turns out that podcasts are a fantastic way to learn history across all scales and time periods, one lesson at a time. And many history podcasts have been released for over a decade before Serial was a glitter in Sarah Koenig’s eyes, so you can start drinking right away. In continuation of our first part , which presented the show Something True, Crimetown and Revolutions, here are three distinct historical podcast (but it’s not the same superslavny).
The tides of history
“Events and even individuals are just crests of foam on top of the waves that carry the deeper tides of history on their strong backs.”
Historian Patrick Wyman uses this quote from historian Fernand Braudel to introduce his popular podcast,Tides of History, about the long rise of the modern era. Wyman agrees with Braudel that history is better explained by describing broad trends and events than by listing kings and battles, but that kings, battles, and even the lives of ordinary people are useful examples of the broader forces that drive and govern them. In Wyman’s case, it is the tides that best explain the rise of the modern nation-state.
While most of the stories of the modern era have their origins somewhere in the Renaissance, Wyman begins much earlier – roughly where his last podcast, The Fall of Rome , ended. Unlike kings and battles, the course of history cannot be tied to specific dates. It makes the first few episodes seem like a throat clearing, but the impact comes as the podcast builds on its ideas, giving the listener a broader understanding of what life was like (and how the world works) at a very fundamental level in the millennium between Rome and the Renaissance. For this reason, I recommend listening to the entire episode from the beginning.
Like most history podcasts, Wyman’s is basically a lecture series. But it’s less “Anyone? Bueller? and more at TED Talk, and this time I mean it in a good way. Wyman loves to start off episodes with a richly thought-out piece of life, narrated through music and sound effects that can deliver the same thrill as the launch of Civilization . These scenes help substantiate the abstract concepts that Wyman uses.
Wyman travels between the early and late Middle Ages, analyzing the long history of the phenomenon before showing how it reached its tipping point. More recently, before tackling Christopher Columbus and the Age of Discovery, Wyman runs a series on Medieval Studies. Once you get used to the timeline in the style of the world of the Wild West, you will be able to fully appreciate how the show makes all the names and dates that you have learned the lesson of history, from trivia to a deeper understanding of how the world came true.
Tides of History | 33 episodes, ongoing
Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys are the exact opposite. All 262 episodes of this talk show are dedicated to the history of New York, and each of them focuses on one figure, era or event. Co-hosts Greg Young and Tom Meyers are laid-back but educated, and their rapport does this not as a lesson, but as an eavesdropping on two very smart people in a bar.
A bar like McSorley’s Old Ale House is one of the many classics in New York that I knew The Boys had shut down before I checked out. (Through the use of tags on the show’s blog, you can easily navigate from this episode to more coverage of nightlife or other East Village history .) You can start by simply googling “Bowery Boys” and the name of any major New Yorker or institution. which you are especially interested in; they probably covered it, sometimes from different angles.
The best example, and a great starting point, is Return to Riot of Stone: The Evolving Legacy of a Cruel Night, updated in 2017 for the 2008 Boys series, celebrating one of the biggest events in the history of gay rights in America. History is actually historiography, and Young and Meyers prove this by discussing how our understanding of Stonewall has been blurred by the exclusion of people who did not fit into the limited narrative, especially transgender and minority activists who were often ignored when glorifying white men. … … They talk about how this limited understanding influenced their own work ten years ago, and now they tell stories they missed. It’s this kind of thoughtful exercise that makes this show feel austere despite its less academic pedigree.
Bowery Boys | 262 series, continues
Memory palace
Most podcasts should be shorter. Very few shows really deserve a two hour viewing. Nate DiMeo works hard to earn every second of the Memory Palace . Each episode of 10 to 20 minutes is a prose poem based on a historical figure or artifact. DiMeo offers quiet, serious meditations that receive a Peabody Award and New Yorker review (where you will learn that DiMeo has also written for TV shows like Parks and Rec ).
As with The Bowery Boys , I got this podcast from Lifehacker commentator: Reader Tom S. recommended starting with Notes on an Imaginary Plaque, and so did I. The full title is much longer and shows how often the historical DiMeo vignettes address current political issues, such as how to deal with the many statues of slaveholders and Confederate leaders: Notes on an imaginary plaque to be added to General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s statue after heard that Memphis City Council voted to move her. and the exhumed remains of General Forrest and his wife Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest from their current location in a downtown park to nearby Elmwood Cemetery. “
Feel free to switch between individual episodes of the Palace of Memory , but be aware that most episode titles are just a word or two, and avoid revealing the subject. DiMeo created his own best movie from ten suggested episodes centered in the middle of the show. Hopefully he will update his favorite recent articles soon. Meanwhile, he titled his favorite 2017 episode: “If You Must Be Gender,” filmed during his time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Memory Palace | 125 episodes, ongoing